Riley, Bond Scribes Set For “SS-GB”

Sam Riley (“Maleficent,” “Control”) is in talks to star in a BBC film adaptation of acclaimed espionage thriller author Len Deighton’s “SS-GB” which James Bond film series regular scribes Neil Purvis and Robert Wade are writing.

The story is set in a UK conquered and occupied by Germany during World War II. Detective Superintendent Douglas Archer, a British homicide detective assigned to Scotland Yard, is called in to investigate a murder of a well-dressed man.

To his surprise, the case draws the attention of the highest levels of the German government and he finds himself in the middle of a struggle between powerful forces.

Award-winning German director Philipp Kadelbach (“Generation War”) is attached to direct the prestige project for the Beeb which Patrick Schweitzer will produce. Shooting begins this Fall.

Deighton penned several notable period spy thriller novels including the “Hook, Line and Sinker,” “Faith, Hope and Charity”” and “Game, Set and Match” trilogies along with the four Harry Palmer books (“The Ipcress File,” “Horse Under Water,” “Funeral in Berlin,” “Billion-Dollar Brain”) which were adapted into a trilogy of films starring Michael Caine.